


Crowd Me With Love

by Writingwife83



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/M, Romance, Sherlock Holmes and Feelings, Sherlock's Mind Palace, Songfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-17
Updated: 2015-11-17
Packaged: 2018-05-02 03:47:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5232773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Writingwife83/pseuds/Writingwife83
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock struggles with the idea that he'd need love and relationship in his life in order to make it complete. What does he need with all that foolishness anyway? But he ends up finding that the answers are right inside him if he just listens and puts the pieces together. -Based off the song "Being Alive" from the musical Company.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Crowd Me With Love

**Author's Note:**

  * For [moonstone1520](https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonstone1520/gifts).



> This was born from a request from letitbelikebreathing11 on Tumblr for a one shot (which I posted on the site a couple weeks ago) based on the song Being Alive from the musical Company. I have never actually seen it, but when I heard the song it was obvious why she made this request! What an amazing song to tell the story of Sherlock coming to terms with his heart and emotions! I highly recommend you give it a listen before reading this. It is just lovely. :)

"I told you before and I'll tell you again, it wouldn't work, John!" Sherlock bellowed in the back of the cab as it pulled up to Baker Street. "That's the point, and there's no sense in going round in circles about it any more. What does it all get me?! Nothing!"

John opened his mouth to try and say something else, but Sherlock promptly exited the cab and slammed the door, stomping into his building. Poor John sighed and shook his head. He told the cab driver to go. In a way, John felt his friend was right. There was no sense in arguing any further...this was up to Sherlock now.

Sherlock slammed the door to his flat once he got inside. He threw his scarf and coat off and stomped over to the fireplace, removing one of the bricks to look for the secret pack of cigarettes. When he saw it had been removed by some infuriating friend, he tossed the brick clear across the room, smashing a dent right near the yellow smiley face. Sherlock collapsed in his chair, breathing hard with his fingers buried deep in his curls.

"Stupid, stupid!" he growled at himself. He heard a million voices in his head; his friends and family all vying for his attention, eager to give him their point of view. "Shut up!"

One moment of weakness and he'd completely ruined the perfectly simple life of solitude he'd constructed. Just one little moment! He'd been weak. She was there, and he was just glad to be back and that's all it was...of course. To be home in London again without the prospect of being shipped off was overwhelmingly thrilling. Seeing her that night in the morgue when he went to check on her, just like he had with his other friends after Moriarty's message, something snapped and he acted on instinct. Her lips were so warm and the way she eagerly responded to his kisses was so intoxicatingly sweet. He could easily have lost himself completely, but when he moved his mouth to her neck and her lips were free to speak, she whispered a breathy "I love you, Sherlock" into his hair.

Sherlock instantly pulled himself from the heated embrace, backing slowly away and suddenly looking at her like a disease. He had just begun to register the fact that her eyes were filling with tears when he turned and ran from the morgue.

He knew he'd made a terrible mistake. He never should have gotten that close. It was obvious how she felt, even if she hadn't said it aloud. He didn't want that, any of it. And now that he'd been foolish enough to kiss her like that, he'd hurt her. Molly was his friend who he cared about, so it was never his intention to cause her pain. Sherlock simply didn't want a relationship, a marriage, or a family. He wasn't like everyone. What did all that get you anyway?

Sherlock retreated into his mind palace, trying to sort through this problem with some of the evidence he had meticulously organized to prove the fact that he needed to maintain his state of solitude. As he was pawing through a file drawer, someone appeared and shoved it over, sending all the papers flying out onto the ground. He looked up, and there stood John.

"There's no good reason for you being alone, Sherlock. You won't find them in here, or anywhere."

Sherlock huffed in annoyance. "It wouldn't work! She'd push herself into my life, be part of my life. Things wouldn't be the same anymore! Even my flat! She'd be there, she'd be everywhere!" He turned and tried to walk away but almost ran into Mary.

"You think that's all it is, Sherlock?" she asked gently. "There's so much more. How would you know if you haven't tried living it?"

He aggressively waved a hand in dismissal. "It isn't worth it! She'll start needing me and want to know everything about me and what I'm doing and she'll tell me when I'm wrong. And she'll care...oh I know her, she'll care far too much!" Sherlock said desperately.

"Don't be afraid of caring, brother mine," Mycroft said, suddenly rounding a corner. He picked up a piece of paper with 'caring is not an advantage' written in large letters. "Did I say this? You should learn not to take me so very seriously." He ripped up the page and sprinkled the pieces in the air.

"Go on, Sherlock dear," Mrs. Hudson chimed in in a cheery tone, joining the crowd. "Keep going, you'll get there."

"You know, it might not be perfect," Lestrade said, suddenly there leaning against the wall. "But it would be worse if it never happened at all!"

Sherlock sighed and rubbed his tired eyes. "I'd have to let her in and think of her feelings and tell her things whether I like it or not," he said in a slightly whiny voice.

"Come on, Sherlock," John prodded. "Put the pieces together, mate. Think about it!"

"She- she'd force me...to care, to- to fall in love, to be there for her, and she'd be there too...always there," he said in a shaky timbre, marching around the room. "She'd be there and be just as afraid of all of this as I am, I know it! Of everything, of...being..."

Sherlock stopped in his tracks and his jaw dropped. "Alive," he whispered.

Mary put a hand on his shoulder. "You know what you need, Sherlock. We all know you can see it."

He looked at her and around the room at all the people who care for him. "To feel...alive," he said, his voice faltering slightly. "Alone..." He shook his head. "Is not alive."

Everyone around him grinned, seeming pleased with his conclusion, and Sherlock let out a heavy sigh as well. Seeing as everyone and everything was part of his own subconscious, he was as relieved with the revelation as all the faces looking back at him.

"Well then you know what you need to do," John said, opening the door to the room they stood in. "Go on."

Sherlock opened his eyes and looked around his darkened flat. It was indeed time to go get what he wanted...what he needed. He jumped up and grabbed his coat, rushing down the stairs and flying out the door to catch a cab.

* * *

Molly walked down the darkened hallway, her footsteps echoing on the shiny hospital floor, and she hit the button for the lift when she reached it. When the door opened, she let out a little gasp at the face looking back at her.

"Sherlock," she breathed out. She hesitated, unwilling to step inside. "I'll um...take the stairs."

Before she could move away, Sherlock reached out and gently took her arm to ease her into the lift, which she didn't fight. The door slid shut and the second that it did, he reached out and put a key into the slot bellow the regular buttons, turning it to "stop" and halting the lift before it could move.

Molly frowned at him. "Sherlock, what are you doing?"

"I'm sorry," he said intensely. "For last week."

Her face fell and she licked her lips. "Yeah, I know. It's ok. I just...I can't keep doing this, ok?"

"Neither can I," Sherlock murmured and slid one of his hands across her cheek, his fingers burying into her smooth hair.

Molly looked terrified. "Sherlock, don't. I- I mean I can't keep getting hurt like this. You need to just let me go...for good this time," she said firmly.

"No. That's not what I need to do," he responded, just as firmly. "I'll tell you what I need."

Molly tried to catch her breath as her eyes traveled the landscape of his face, watching his eyes as they watched her. "Ok...tell me," she whispered, throwing caution to the wind.

"Need me," he said, his voice rumbling like thunder in the little lift. "Know me, and tell me when I've fallen short, and support me, all in the same breath like you've always done so perfectly. Hold me, and hurt me, and turn my life upside down. I want you to push your way into my life, crowding me with your love. I need you to be everywhere. My mind, my heart, my flat, my bed...even my chair." Sherlock cracked a smile and was pleased to see Molly respond in kind.

"Please, Molly," he went on with an expression of yearning, using both hands now to grasp her face. "Force me to care. And I'll come through this time. I'm scared as you, even more so...but I swear that from now on I'll always be there. Because I want us to survive. Not alone anymore...together."

Tears slipped down Molly's cheeks and onto Sherlock's hands. She reached out and wrapped her arms around his middle, hugging him and holding him almost like a child. She held him like that for a few moments before lifting herself to her toes and holding onto his neck in order to reach his mouth and consume it with a kiss. An all-consuming kiss, with both their hands quickly grasping hair and holding each other as close as possible.

Sherlock pulled back and smiled at her. "I know this is right, Molly. I've never been more sure of anything...because I've never felt it so intensely."

Molly was enjoying the light in his eyes that was so unusually and surprisingly brilliant. "Felt what so intensely?"

He grinned even wider, looking down at the woman he needed, and would always need. And then he told her.

"Being Alive."


End file.
